


Shut the Sky

by Anna__S



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-16
Updated: 2014-10-16
Packaged: 2018-02-21 09:07:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2462615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anna__S/pseuds/Anna__S
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One thousand, two hundred and three score days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shut the Sky

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Gabby for the help, enthusiasm and general perversion. 
> 
> Hello new fandom.

 

_Six Days_

 

Ichabod wanted, for just one moment, to experience something that wasn’t new. 

The air tasted different.  His own skin smelled foreign. Even his body felt strange, stiffer perhaps, from the centuries in the ground.  He had so little left of himself. 

So he clutched on to those slices of his day that were almost familiar.  The first moment of the morning, before he opened his eyes.  The sensation of standing completely alone in the dark woods. He grasped those small moments tightly, as if they could be used to build a ladder back to himself.  

There was a time when he believed he knew what his life would hold.  He recognized the contours of his future; foresaw the limits of his profession and his fortune.  

It was not unpleasant, to know one's life so completely.  But America ripped through that certainty, like a knife through butter.  

If somebody had told a young Ichabod what his life would look like, twenty or two hundred years hence, depending on how one calculated it, he would not have had the language to comprehend his fate. The New World, democratic revolution, even these were foreign concepts to him then.

His curse was starting anew, again and again.  But the first time was a call to conscience, a young man's adventure. The first time was a choice.

  

* * *

  

 _Fifteen Days_

 

One of his father’s earliest lessons was that names mattered.  The foxes, the deer, the untold chickens running loose across the land, these were all unnamed, disposable.  

It had been one of his tasks to name their hounds and he took the responsibility seriously. He would watch them carefully; noting the friskier, more social pups and the pups that lingered back, huddled near their mother.

Ichabod knew, even then, that there was a kind of magic in a name. That whatever he selected would influence that dog’s fate.

Most of his father’s teachings had failed him, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that if he could just learn the name for everything in this unfathomable new world he was trapped in, he might be able to understand it. 

He eyed Lieutenant Mills’ vehicle.

“I never asked...does your beast have a name?” 

“My beast?” she asked, her forehead creased in an expression of irritation and confusion that he was already intimately familiar with. It meant he made another translation error.  They had made such a butchery of his once beautiful language. 

He tapped against the roof of the car.

She let out a tiny snort, almost a laugh. “My car? It’s a Chrysler.

“Chrysler,” he repeated, “It’s a fine name. Very noble.”   

Lieutenant Mills smiled, her teeth shockingly white and even. “No, that’s the name of the company that produces it.”

“So, they all have the same name? Is that not confusing?”

“You can name it if you want,” she said. “It’s okay by me.”

"Okay?” he said.

“Okay, like it’s all right, no problem, no biggie.”

“Biggie,” he said, trying not to make it sound like a question.  He was still learning the edges of the Lieutenant’s patience.  He mouthed the word, feeling the shape of it on his lips. _Chrysler._ It was a small step. 

 

* * *

 

_Seventy-Five Days_

 

It was, as Abbie was fond of saying, _another day, another damn demon in my face_. 

This time, the occupant of the cursed farmhouse had separated them, lured them into distant corners and plunged them into darkness. Her yells were faint but clear, and they spurred him on, put sap in his veins.

As he entered the barn, he could dimly make out her shape. Her wrists were pinned against the wall with something that looked as if it had been crafted out of some dark liquid.

What little light reached the room was reflected back at him in her eyes.  A narrow black shape hovered near her.   

“Remember he can read your mind, Crane. Be careful,” Abbie warned him, her voice sounding strained. He wondered, briefly, what secret thought of hers had been exposed, but was relieved, for her sake, that he had not been privy to it.

“She’s right,” said the demon, speaking softly, although his voice carried as if he was speaking directly into his ear. “I see your heart, Ichabod Crane, oath breaker, turncoat.  But what does she see?”

The demon moved towards him, but it was blurred, like gazing at a reflection through water.  Ichabod tensed, his hand sliding into his coat pocket.  

“Does she know your doubts; has it ever occurred to her how _convenient_ it is for you to be a witness? Otherwise, what purpose would you serve in this strange, new world, man out of time?”

 _Now_ , he saw Abbie mouthing. 

Ichabod pulled out the small hand torch Lieutenant Mills had lent him, and flicked it with his thumb, once, twice, before seeing the spark.  He thrust the light into the bale of hay to his right.  The dry, withered stalks were immediately set ablaze. 

The bale sent flames licking to and fro, and the demon stepped back just as Abbie kicked forward, the power of her legs sending the demon flying into the fire. Its flesh turned to liquid; filling the barn with a dark, foul smelling steam. 

Abbie’s restraints dissolved into the same molten substance, and she stepped towards him, grinning.

“I’m melting,” she said in a high-pitched tone. At his blank stare, she nodded and said decisively, “next movie night.”

“Lieutenant, his last words –“ he began, but she shook her head at him.

“Crane, do you really think after everything we’ve seen, including this pile of demon goo, anybody could convince me that this is all a figment of your imagination?” 

“No, I suppose not,” he agreed.  He did not point out that it was Abbie who had told him that the demon saw their darkest, truest self.  But there was no doubt in her voice.

 

* * *

 

_One Hundred and Ninety-Eight Days_

 

“Another one?” she asked, pressing two fingers against the small, singed hole in his jacket sleeve.  He refrained from telling her that there was a matching tear in the lapel.

“If you would only be willing to provide me with a simple needle and thread, I could mend this in an instant.”    

Jenny appeared in the doorway. “Don’t encourage him. Crane, we can smell you coming down the street.” She smirked at him and disappeared back into the kitchen. 

“I freed this nation from British tyranny wearing this coat – ” he started, but Abbie interrupted him. 

“And it’s a very nice coat. But it has _holes_ in the elbows, Crane. Holes that will let the cold air in. And we don’t need to risk starting the apocalypse early because one of the world’s two witnesses froze to death.” She turned her gaze on him, arching her eyebrows. 

“Nobody’s going to think you’re less of a pain in the ass just because you’re wearing something from the 21st century,” she added, more gently. 

“Speaking of the cold, have you talked to him about next week?” asked Jenny, as she reappeared and settled down on the couch next to Ichabod.  

“I was getting there,” said Abbie in a warning tone.

Jenny turned to him.  “We’re getting the blizzard of the century or something here next week and if you sleep out in that cabin, you’re going to end up stranded. You need to stay here for a bit.”  

“You’re suggesting that I move into a home with two unwed woman? I know social mores have changed, but that hardly seems proper.” 

“I can’t drag my ass through six feet of snow every time we need to talk.  What are you going to do if the power goes out?” Abbie asked. 

“Mankind somehow survived for hundred years without electricity,” he said stubbornly.

“How did I know he was going to say that,” Jenny said. “Why don’t you stay here next week and we can see how it goes from there. Even the groundhog said we’re in for a long winter.”

Ichabod blinked.  He kept waiting for the day where their language did not contain unexpected divots and diversions, but it still seemed a long way off.

“I’m sorry, you can’t mean…are you telling me that you listen to a rodent’s meteorological prophecies?” 

“It’s just a tradition, Crane.”

“That sort of desperate reliance on antiquated traditions is precisely why we fought the war,” he said, his voice growing heated.

“Okay, I know you were there, but I don’t think the founding fathers were thinking about groundhogs when they wrote the Declaration of Independence.”  

“Guys,” said Abbie in a warning tone. “Crane, just stay here next week. It’ll make everybody’s life a little easier. And we could use easier right now. We’ll make up the sofa bed for you.”

He had no idea what a sofa bed was, nor was he sure he wanted to know.

“Fine,” he said. “But I will not forsake my coat.”

 

* * *

_Two Hundred and Fifteen Days_

The twenty-first century was utterly distasteful. In the decades he had slept underground, the world had collectively abandoned all manners, and been consumed by an unprincipled greed, a form of capitalism run amok. And for all of the astonishing new technology, nothing ever seemed to work as it was intended.

He flung the small remote onto the table.

“Lieutenant, this confounded contraption will not work!” he yelled into the kitchen, where he could hear her moving around.

“Crane, I know you know how to use that DVR. I’m not coming out there for this.” 

He sunk down into the couch, and picked up his sandwich. It left behind a perfect square of grease on the wrapper.  As he bit into the sandwich, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something move.

The writing was painfully familiar. Even on tinfoil, he instantly recognized Katrina’s elegant hand.  

_My power is growing stronger.  I have so much to share with you. News of our son and news of the horseman’s plan._

The message faded and new script appeared. _Not much longer, now, my love. Be patient._

 

* * *

_Two Hundred and Seventy-Five Days_

 

She took him to Manhattan to interview a self-declared demonology expert, who was, as he had foreseen, a complete lunatic.  

“Well,” she said, as they stepped onto the street, dodging a bike, “that was a bust.”  

“This entire city should be closed and turned into an asylum for the insane,” he muttered as a woman dressed in only stockings and exposing a shocking amount of her sternum, trod on his foot.

“One more stop,” she said. “Because even biblical figures need a break sometimes.” 

Abbie looped her arm through his, and he did not retreat from her, even though it forced him into a stoop.  She guided them another dozen blocks north, while he grumbled that his coat was no worse than half the outfits on the street. He still felt its absence keenly. 

“Where are we?” he asked as they entered a tall, glass-covered building. 

“My friend lived here for years. The building has a great view and the doorman doesn’t pay any attention to who comes inside,” she said, nodding at a half-asleep figure. 

He was well acquainted with elevators by then, but he was unprepared for this one.  As they flew upwards, he felt something in his stomach drop, and he lurched to the side, his hand scrabbling at the wall for purchase. Their fellow rider stared at him in confusion while Abbie tried to hold back a laugh.

They stepped out onto the forty-third floor. Even from the anteroom, he could see the stripes of dark pink streaked across the sky, the skyscrapers jutting into the clouds. 

Ichabod leaned against the railing, feeling Abbie’s eyes on him as he gazed across the City. The Hudson River, his old friend, churned darkly on the horizon.  But there was nothing else left of the place he had known. 

For the first time, he truly knew the vastness of what he had lost.  And what he had found.

* * *

 

_Four Hundred and Twelve Days_

 

The incubus tied them to a hook sunk deep into the ceiling, trussing them together like meat in a butcher shop. The implications were undoubtedly ominous. 

And they were bound so tightly that their limbs were completely intertwined. He could feel her fingers trapped against his spine, her upper thigh pinned against his hipbone.  He could not open his mouth without tasting her neck. Her skin smelled unfamiliar, absent the usual pungency of flesh.

Ichabod spoke anyway, asking her if she had any leverage she could use to swing them forward and perhaps build up enough speed to slip off the hook. 

And that’s how Jenny and Irving found them, struggling against each other, dangling more than five feet off the ground. They laughed for a full minute before they released them. 

“Where’s Moloch’s henchman?” Abbie asked, rubbing at the ligature marks seared into her arms and wrists.

Jenny was still wiping tears out of her eyes. “Dead of course.  The body’s upstairs.”

He did not meet Abbie’s eyes. He could still feel the odd medicinal taste of her skin on his lips. 

  

* * *

 

_Six Hundred and Thirty-One Days_

He adjusted, eventually, to seeing her handwriting everywhere he went.  Sometimes it was information, occasionally even valuable information, but more often, it was simply encouragement, words of love.   

 _There will be difficult choices ahead, my dear Ichabod._ _You will have to be strong_ the most recent note had said, the words carved through a brown coffee stain on his napkin. 

When he read the notes, he heard them in her soft voice, but he wondered occasionally, whether other voices had started to bleed into his memories.

He tried to picture her face, her small nose, her bright eyes, but they were fleeting.  The only image he could hold in his mind for more than a second or two was of her red hair lying in loose curls across her white pillow.

It occurred to him, at some point, that he had now known Abbie for longer than he had known Katrina. And there were moments when he thought that her bravery, her loyalty, might be worth the years of unconsciousness in the muck, the dissolution of an entire life. To not know her no longer seemed imaginable; it would be as if he had never truly known himself

He still dreamt of Katrina, most nights.  But there were nights when he dreamt of other things.

* * *

_Eight Hundred and Twenty Days_

 

It wounded Ichabod’s pride that Henry did not bother to bind them. He reminded himself that this pride was a failing; that it could still be Henry’s undoing. Except for the bruise on her temple, he and Jenny seemed unharmed.  

Henry continued to shuffle through papers at his table, occasionally pausing to glance up at him, a gleeful expression on his face

“It doesn’t have to end like this Jeremy,” Ichabod said. “I know that somewhere in your soul you are still my son.  We can start over. We can save mankind together. As a family.” 

Next to him, he could sense Jenny stirring.

Henry let out a laugh.  “I have no wish to save mankind, my dear Father.  It’s a diseased race.  Even the best of you are teeming with sin. Simply rotten with it.”

His voice was low and calm, but it oozed disgust. “I spent years hiding myself away, trying to protect myself from it, but why should I be the only one who bears that burden? When the apocalypse comes, that sin will be laid bare for you all to see.” 

“This is some weird Darth Vader shit,” Jenny muttered, barely loud enough for him to hear. 

Then, in a louder, clear voice, she said, “I had a demon living in my brain for years, so don’t talk to me about what’s wrong with human beings.” 

Ichabod glanced down at her, but her eyes were fixed on Henry.  Her face was sharp where Abbie’s was soft, wary where Abbie’s was warm, but they shared the same indomitable core of steel. 

“I prefer the honesty of demons to the false pretenses of humanity, my dear,” said Henry.

“Now…don’t go anywhere, my little caged birds,” he said. He shut the door behind him, and even through the thick walls they could hear a strange grating noise, like gears grinding.  

“Any ideas?” Jenny asked, pulling herself to her feet.

The room was windowless and there was no obvious avenue of escape. She jammed her hands into the seams of the doorway, pulling and pushing, but they both knew it would be fruitless.

“Your sister will find us,” he said simply. They always found each other. It was the only promise he had never broken.

 

* * *

 

_One Thousand, Two Hundred and Sixty Days_

The apocalypse was not what he imagined. It had the surreal feeling of a dream; he might have believed it was a dream, if it was not for the rotting smell or the way the heat seared his face. There were no words, not in any of his six languages, to describe the beauty or the terror of the world set aflame. 

Everything, except for Abbie, was out of focus. He tried to keep her in his sight, as if that would tether him to his memory of himself.  As if that could save them both. 

* * *

 

_One Thousand, Two Hundred and Sixty Three Days_

He eased himself back into consciousness slowly. It was like arriving through a very long tunnel.  The shapes of the room become clearer and clearer, gaining definition and color. 

When he finally opened his eyes, the light was not blinding. He knew where he was.

“Welcome back,” said Abbie as he raised his neck up, twisting his head to one side and then the other. She was half-seated in the bed next to his, eating something out of a cup. 

“There are ice chips by the bed,” she added.

Ichabod placed a single cube on his tongue, allowing the cool sensation to spread through his entire mouth before he took another.

“What day is it?” he asked. 

“You’ve been unconscious for three days. I just woke up this morning. Like the bible says, after the three and a half days, the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet,” she quoted. “Although I’m not quite ready to get on my feet and I’m definitely not entering heaven on a cloud any time soon.”

He coughed, and tried to sit up, which he immediately regretted. His head ached and even through the ice, he could still taste the soot in his mouth. Brimstone tasted alarmingly similar to those cheap cigars Abbie was secretly fond of.   

“What do you remember?” she asked.   

He remembered the earth shifting under his feet. And he remembered Abbie’s face, magnificent and utterly cold, eyes glittering black. He could still feel the spaces where that terrible power had set roots in him, as if something had shifted and realigned inside him, and now the pieces did not quite fit together.

“Not much,” he admitted. “Flashes. Did we, is it possible, we created an earthquake?”

“Among other things,” she said, something strange behind her eyes. 

“We were vessels for something divine,” he said.

“I’m not sure divinity feels like this,” she said, attempting a smile and not quite succeeding. 

She gazed at him for a long beat, before swinging her legs to the floor. Her white hospital dress covered her down to her knees, but he could see that her calves were covered in long, raw burns, like red slashes across her skin. She walked to his bed slowly, gingerly and he scooted over as she slid in next to him.

He finally gained the courage to ask the question that he needed to ask, although he thought he knew the answer. 

“Katrina?”

“You missed that boat, I’m sorry,” she said in her most gentle tone, although he didn’t believe that she was.

“It is some comfort that she is, at least alive, in some time,” he said, closing his eyes. 

He pictured her in their home, in their shared life. She would grow old somewhere else.  Their son was rotting in the ground. He was never going back.  That door had closed, at last. 

Abbie squeezed his hand.  “Maybe it’s selfish, but I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “I don’t know if I could’ve stopped myself without you,” she admitted.

“We always knew it would take both of us, together,” he said. 

“We saved the world,” she said in a voice filled with wonder and pain in equal measure. She gripped his hand tighter and neither of them let go.  

In the end, he did not have to choose between his two lives, but he thought that maybe, given the opportunity, he would have chosen this.

 

* * *

 

_One Thousand Six Hundred and Sixty Five Days_

He poked at the strange, red substance the nurse had told him was jello. The way it wriggled away from his fork reminded him of animal fat.  

Abbie smiled at his efforts. “I forget how much cultural education you still have left.”   

“Is there still a crowd outside?” he asked, hoping to change the topic from his ongoing deficiencies.  

“Nope. If anything, it’s getting bigger,” she said. “Once we’re healthy, we’ll have to decide if we want to do interviews, or…” she paused, letting out a small huff. “I don’t know. What do we do next? Is there a former-witness career path?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It is very odd to no longer have one’s fate ordained by God.” 

He wanted to find Katrina’s grave, the new, true one, and bury the scraps of the last clothing she had sewn for him. He wanted Jenny to cook them both pancakes. He wanted to see the fourth Avengers movie. He wanted to ride in an airplane.  

“I think perhaps I would like to see England again. I read it only takes six hours now,” he said, speaking slowly, as the idea unfurled within him.

“You know it won’t exactly be the same place you remember.”

“I know,” he said, and it was true.  “But I want to see the fields where I grew up. Perhaps find my father’s gravestone. I’d like to show you Oxford.”

“So, I’m going on this trip too?” she asked.

“Of course, Lieutenant.”

“Well, Crane, if we’re both going on this trip, you might want to think about getting a job.” 

He lay back and tried to picture it.  Maybe he would be a teacher after all.  Perhaps, he could still fulfill some of his father’s wishes. Perhaps there was still time for that.

 

* * *

  

_One Thousand, Seven Hundred and One Days_

She decided they needed a day off. A day away from the media scrum and the cameras, and the adoring fans, from the picketing anti-occultists, from Irving’s grieving, bewildered family, even from Jenny, who had become an over-bearing nursemaid during their convalescence.

“You’ll like the Mets,” she told him on the drive to Queens. “They require a leap of faith. Just like you.” 

He offered to buy them lunch – he had money now, from their T.V. exclusive  – but Abbie warned him that he still wasn’t ready for concession prices.  _Next year_ , she promised. She brought them back matching trays of hot dogs and French fries and cold beer. 

He bit into the hotdog, eyeing the ketchup and mustard balefully. He had gotten better at eating this odd food, but it was still a precarious activity. 

“Why must these always be so devilishly messy,” he asked as a squirt of ketchup landed on his pants. 

“The mess is kind of the point,” Abbie said, smirking at him before taking a bite of hers.  

Ichabod took a sip from his draught of beer and Abbie nudged him. “Watch the pitcher. You can tell he’s worried about a steal.” 

“I know the rules,” he said. He had consumed them cover-to-cover the night before. He’d even read an odd book by the famous baseball philosopher, Yogi Berra. This could no longer be just her world. 

“This pitcher has been averaging an ERA of less than three per game. He shouldn’t be worried.” 

“Try to resist showing off,” she said, but she grinned, one of her wide brilliant smiles, and he felt himself, involuntarily, smile back

The sky was a blinding blue and the field was a deep shade of green, startling in its perfect clarity.  The world was turning on its axis.  Ichabod watched the game and thought about tomorrow.


End file.
